Today we learned that a lot of Chromebooks only support the SBC codec for Bluetooth audio. Fortunately, Google may be bringing AAC, aptX, aptX HD, and LDAC support to select Chromebooks in a future update.
The Bluetooth stack in Chrome OS is the standard Linux BlueZ, but since 2021, Google has been experimenting with building Android’s Fluoride stack for Linux (Floss). This is disabled by default but can be enabled on compatible Chromebooks through a flag.
When building Floss, “nonstandard” A2DP codecs (aptX, aptX HD, LDAC, and AAC) aren’t included by default but can be built with the bt_nonstandard_codecs flag. Floss stopped building these “nonstandard” A2DP codecs by default pending a “license and patent review.” But now it looks like AAC, aptX, aptX HD, LDAC, AAC, and a bonus Opus, may be enabled by default in the Floss stack.
2532643: Floss: enable AAC and remove it from nonstandard codecs
2574491: TEST: enable Aptx, AptxHD, LDAC
We don’t know if/when this will ever land – Floss itself is still not enabled by default on most Chromebooks IIRC – but it’s good to see Google potentially address Bluetooth audio shortcomings in Chrome OS. Qualcomm recently submitted aptX and aptX HD encoders to AOSP’s BT stack, so we wondering if/when that would make its way to Chrome OS/Floss.
